


I Hoped That You Would Come

by ferrisulich



Category: The Song of Achilles - Madeline Miller
Genre: Achilles waits for Patroclus, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Canon Compliant, Cerberus - Freeform, Charon - Freeform, Elysium, Everyone is Dead, Hades - Freeform, M/M, POV Achilles (Song of Achilles), Post-Canon, Underworld, judges, just 14 chapters of angst really
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-27
Updated: 2021-03-09
Packaged: 2021-03-12 15:53:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 6
Words: 10,176
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29013111
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ferrisulich/pseuds/ferrisulich
Summary: After his death, Achilles finds himself in the underworld. Prepared to face his judgement and eternity, he marches into hell, only to learn that Patroclus never arrived. He sets up vigil outside the gates, and waits.~/~Where is he?’ he demanded, his voice breaking against the colossal thrones like a wooden spear against the walls of Troy. The crowd stirred over his shoulder, whispers amongst ghosts, but Achilles paid them no mind.‘And who do you speak of?’ asked Minos, the barbs of his lashing tongue catching Achilles’s skin, tearing what little remained unmarked. He turned his attention to the last of the judges, and spoke solely to Rhadamanthus.‘Patroclus.’
Relationships: Achilles/Patroclus (Song of Achilles)
Comments: 51
Kudos: 130





	1. Charon

**Author's Note:**

> TW: mild gore (blood and injury description)

The man blinked against the dawn beyond his eyelids, the flesh warmed to an orange glow. Achilles cracked open his eyes, which he only just remembered closing against the flash of steel, a glinting arrowhead in the afternoon sun. There wasn’t supposed to be flesh, after the arrow. Only, finally, relief. His knees had given out before the tip had dug into his bare back, would have missed his heart, had they not. He’d closed his eyes, a smile on his face, a name on his lips. That had been it.

There had been more, after that, he knew. He’d watched, apart, alone, his body hoisted upon the shoulders of soldiers, returned to the beach, and burned. Servant girls had gathered his ashes when his mother would not. A gold urn came to mind when he fished for it, but only slowly, languidly, honey between his ears which still rang with the war cries of men, dying around him, on his blade. There was blood on his chest, sticky still to the touch, warmed by his skin which should not be. He looked down, finding himself lit by flames, the firelight licking greedily at the red stains across his skin. He was still wearing his torn tunic, wet with a mixture of blood, some his own, some not. The frayed corners were crusted in mud from the battlefield where he had fallen, his knees and hands stained by the earth. He reached for more, dragging at the unwilling dredges of his memories which seemed caught somewhere else. A desperation lodge itself in his chest, level with the gaping wound between his ribs. He needed to know.

He searched the haze following his fall, the dream drenched edges of his mind. Had there been other ashes on the urn? Had there been another name on the grave?

‘Though you can no longer die, you may still choke,’ came a gravely warning to his left. Achilles did not start. He’d known the man was there, along the edges of his still thrumming senses, simply palling in comparison to the growing panic mounting in his throat. He closed his eyes, finding them again illuminated by the flames beyond, painting a sunset across his gaze. He searched for a modicum of the composure which had left him the moment he’d seen the dark curls tumbling from beneath the sheet on the stretcher. He went to swallow, finding the taste of gold in his mouth. Achilles pulled the coin from beneath his tongue, and faced Charon.

‘Has a man come through?’ he asked, surprising himself by the broken quality of his voice, a quiet plea breathing in the spaces between his words. He did not care, no longer. There had been pride once. _Hubris_ had been the word used. Now there was only a sharp pain behind his sternum. His eyes searched the burning orbs of the ferrymen from beneath his ratted cloak.

‘Many men come through. I hear you’re having one of your wars,’ he answered, jutting his chin over Achilles shoulder, back into the darkness beyond. Achilles did not look. He knew there was nothing but a wall of stone, one which would not yield beneath his touch, or his fists.

‘We are.’

‘Well, there you go. People coming in all the time, mostly men. Still in their armour usually—’

‘A breast plate,’ Achilles’s voice shook, ‘black, with a phoenix carved in gold.’ His knuckles blanched around the coin in his fist, the metal edge digging into the skin of his palm, but not painfully. A strange numbness radiated up his arm instead.

‘It is not my place to remember such things. There are many of you.’

‘He was speared through the stomach,’ he stated firmly, swallowing thickly, ‘his hair is dark and falls too long, into his eyes. He has a scar, along the inside of his left arm,’ the words tumbled out then, unbidden, raw even to his own ears, ‘he fell into a ravine, when we were children. On Pelion. It looks like a constellation. Orion.’ Charon held out a hand darkened by soot and soil. The translucent skin beneath looks like bone fragments caught in the mess. Achilles stopped, his chest heaving without having moved a single foot.

‘If you wished me to remember all of them, you wouldn’t send so many.’ He seemed pleased with his answer, a practised tone in his delivery. Achilles’s eyes flashed. He wondered if news of his defeat of the river god had travelled as far as the underworld yet.

‘What is your place then?’ He sneered, but the words left his lips flat, the same numbness travelling from his hand to his chest. Achilles sunk into the fear cradled in his lungs, refusing to be consumed by the growing emptiness. Stories spoke of the souls of the dead, roaming without purpose. They lost their _menos_ , their _phrenes_. Achilles could part with his strength, but his wit was to be undone by one man alone. Not even the deft fingers of Hades could tear it from him. Not yet.

‘I row,’ answered Charon simply, motioning to the rowboat bobbing behind him. He was holding an oar in one dirt-crusted hand, and held out the other, fingers unfurling into claws. Achilles blinked, but handed the man his coin. Charon pocketed it, and stepped into the boat, using the oar to steady himself. He looked back at Achilles, still standing on the bank, bloodied and broken. ‘Come.’

Achilles wrapped himself around the memory of another’s ashes, beside his, pretended he could feel them sifting together. He went.


	2. Judges

The riven ran into the unfinished horizon like a painter’s sketch, a jagged line with no clear end. The scenery warped around the ferrymen and his passenger as they traveled through the underworld, down, it seemed, into the very entrails of hell. It was deserted, on either bank. Nothing but an endless gaping maw, stalagmite teeth reaching down from sightless heights, sulfur thick in the air. A river of fire, Phlegeton, illuminated the landscape like a red raw sun, shadows drawn against the threat of Tartarus beyond. The pair drifted lazily down their own shallow estuary, the air thick with moist warmth Achilles only remembered from the days before their departure for Troy, when the gods had seen fit to punish them. Death wrought of divine wrath.

‘The stories spoke not of flesh,’ Achilles said, slumped in Charon’s rowboat as the robed man lazily pedalled down the Acheron. The dark waters lapped up the sides of the vessel, hissing against the wood like agonized cries. The fumes prickled against his skin.

‘That is why they are stories,’ answered the ferryman, his gaze not drifting from the horizon where he seemed able to discern what Achilles could not.

‘Will there always be flesh?’ He asked, his own eyes drifting to the fiery depths of the Phlegeton, a particularly narrow hairpin turn having brought it level with their own vessel. Achilles could feel the heat of it singing the edges of once-gold hair, now nothing more than the tattered remains of a once-promising life. The grime of the battlefield stuck to his skin, sinking into it, seeping into his blood stream. It would never wash off.

‘I only row. I know not what happens beyond the gates,’ answered Charon with a shrug. He pointed ahead, and Achilles’s keen eyes narrowed to discern the rough outline of monumental doors. The steam from the rivers running beneath the earth rose to obscure the subterranean heavens, in turn shielding the true peaks of the gates from view. Only the very edges, rough stone carved into twisting shapes, a structural effigy to the mortal plight, could be picked apart from the clouds beyond.

‘My mother is a goddess. I am to go to Elysium,’ he stated, his words holding more confidence than his tone. They held in the stale air with unmatched truth, and the weight of an executioner’s sword. Charon shrugged. He dragged the small boat up into an alcove away from the lazy current of the river, and stuck his oar into the gathered sediment along the beach.

‘If you say so,’ he held out a dirt encrusted hand, claws gleaming in the soft firelight of the Phlegeton. Achilles took it lightly, stepping out onto the bank facing the gates of the underworld. They rose above him, monoliths reducing his soul to a pinprick amongst millions. He turned back to Charon, the ferryman had already started his slow return up the Acheron to collect the next soul. Achilles turned on his heel, alone amongst the wastes of the underworld, and walked through the gates.

Rocks encrusted themselves in the soles of his feet, bare and pink still. The walk from the Acheron to the awaiting eternity proved longer than it looked. The gates stretched and stretched in height, towering above the river bank, without getting closer. Like a mountain on the horizon, it moved out of reach perpetually, until one stood at its foot. Achilles had no knowledge of time here, the last wisps of its grasp lost to the fumes of the underground rivers. He walked stiffly until the gates loomed high above his head, the carved stone within reach. When he turned back, the Acheron stood not twenty paces behind him, yet a small infinity had passed. He faced again the imposing gates, catching the engraved details of three growling snouts, rubies eyes sizing his dilapidated state from their encrusted promontories a hundred feet up the stone doors. Firelight licked their scarlet facets, following Achilles as he stepped through, and beyond.

On either side of the doors curved deep gouges tore open the earth, remnants from grooves dug by the immovable stone arches being swung open and pulled closed. The sheer divine force of the act tore at the edges of Achilles’s imaginary, and an uncharacteristic shiver skipped down his spine. The level peninsula of earth narrowed almost to a point beyond, a path leading into a hall built for titans. The ceiling remained inscrutable, but a diffuse grey light poured down from its unfathomable reach, bathing the court scene in desaturated colors. Volcanic rock had been smoothed to a polish along a wide floor at the base of humongous thrones carved directly into the cliff face. Flickers of movement flittered across the chambre, and as he approached, Achilles started to distinguish people. The throng moved like a lazy tide, breaking against the thrones, and receding towards the end of the stretch of earth. Harsh whispers and strands of conversation echoed back to him through the cavern. His arrival at the edge of the crowd halted it all.

His presence drew eyes like moths to a flame. In turn, the rows upon rows of soul spun to face him. The tension was palpable, and for once, Achilles could taste it’s acidity in the back of his throat. His eyes scoured the hundreds of blank faces like a monochrome mosaic, searching for a pair of eyes he would know even now, even in death.

‘Achilles,’ spoke out a voice like the groan of the earth beneath his feet across the crowd. A trembling assaulted the bodies before him, shaken by the very inflection and tone. ‘Son of Thetis, and son of Peleus.’ The cavern shifted, the walls morphing around the words like drawn anew by their meaning. The throng parted without moving, a long gash appearing in the endless faces, leading to the thrones on the far wall. Three men waited for him, philosopher’s beards grown long on their ageless faces, dusty robes thrown haphazardly over their bodies, resolve masking their intent in their pupil-less eyes. The middle one raised a wrinkled hand, curling his bony fingers. ‘Come.’

Achilles’s legs moved before he could steel his mind. A thousand eyes followed his progression through the hall. His own refused to dislodge from his three interlocutors, though the urge to scour the faceless horde scrambled without hold within his mind. The name he’d had on his lips since his arrival now sat heavily his throat. His bare feet stilled on the cold polished floor a few feet from the carved cliff side, facing the judges. The silence rung louder than any words.

‘Men usually kneel before the judges of the underworld,’ spoke again the man with the voice of thawing bays and splintering mountains. His endless white eyes looked right through Achilles, who’s chin lifted infinitesimally.

‘Were you not men once too?’ He asked, voice crackling from disuse, from his journey from the boat to the gates. A shivers rippled out through the crowd behind him, a silent gasp.

‘We were kings,’ corrected the second judge, twisting the edge of his grey beard between his fingers. His words rang with the snap of a whip, sharp edged and lethal. The third lifted one bushy eyebrow at the exchange.

‘I have never knelt before kings.’ _Hubris_ hissed a voice behind his eyes. The sharp-tongued judge smirked.

‘No, you have not. See where that led you?’ the words landed like strikes against his flesh, and Achilles duly wondered why he did not bleed.

‘Was I not destined to die?’ He choked out, chin trembling as it rose again. Minos’s smirk only grew.

‘Your death was written, but what of theirs?’ he threw out a hand as if a strike, and his pleasure only grew at Achilles’s instinctual retreat. The single step, away from the judge’s outstretched hand, sent him tumbling backwards into the crowd. He didn’t fall, his feet as quick and sure as ever, even here, but the grim echo of his heel on the rock floor echoed dissonantly in thrumming hall. He didn’t so much spin as the chamber rearranged around him again, until he was facing the gathered souls, stepping back, away from their multitudes. Their eyes bore down like sun-dipped spears, glinting in the greyish glow of the chamber. They pierced Achilles where he stood, frozen and bare beneath their gazes, their grimaces, their rage. He saw it then, or rather, recognized it: the armor, the tunics, the wall of faces turned as one towards the tide of war. An army, ten years’ worth of men, the weight of his soul a hundred times over, dead and awaiting retribution. The dead of Troy faced down the demigod who had promised them deliverance, and they sneered.

‘I did not ask this of them,’ Achilles said, the words drawn thin across his tongue.

‘You did not stop it, when it was within your power,’ answered Minos, his truth landing between Achilles’s shoulder blades with all the force of a lash, setting aglow a flash of pain across his vertebrae. Pain, though Achilles might not have been familiar with, was a lifeline in the face of his legacy.

‘I had my honor.’ It was an empty word, to the judges, to Achilles.

‘And what do you have now, Pelides?’ Asked Aeacus, with his words of canyons and cliffs. The best of the Greeks spun on his heels, forcing the chamber to obey his will, facing the judges and their accusations.

‘Where is he?’ he demanded, his voice breaking against the colossal thrones like a wooden spear against the walls of Troy. The crowd stirred over his shoulder, whispers amongst ghosts, but Achilles paid them no mind.

‘And who do you speak of?’ asked Minos, the barbs of his lashing tongue catching Achilles’s skin, tearing what little remained unmarked. He turned his attention to the last of the judges, and spoke solely to Rhadamanthus.

‘Patroclus.’ _Pa-tro-clus._ The man arched his other eyebrow, but neither Aeacus nor Minos chose to reply in his stead. The silence stretched until the furthest reaches of the room were quiet again.

‘You believe him to be in Elysium,’ finally spoke Rhadamanthus, something akin to surprised etched into the deep wrinkles of his face. His words were delivered on the wings of doves.

‘Yes,’ Achilles breathed.

‘And if I tell you he isn’t?’ Rhadamanthus carefully laid the question at Achilles’s feet. _If he is in Tartarus._

‘I will go with him.’

There had been no hesitation in his words, and none moved to test their strength. The desperation of a demigod was a brazen thing.

‘He is not here,’ spoke Rhadamanthus softly, ‘he is not yet buried.’ Achilles’s eyes snapped to the man’s weathered face, an agony rivaling that of the tortured painted in broad strokes across his features. Achilles searched for the lie in the judge’s eyes, but found only a place where pity might have resided once, when he’d been more king, and less force. The memory of warmed ashes faded just a little more. Achilles fell back a step, Rhadamanthus’s words sinking deeper than Minos’s ever could. The crowd parted behind him, stepping away from his faltering figure. Another step, and the throng of dead soldiers shifted again, leaving him alone amidst the bloodied armor and copper. Another step, and the pink flash of his heels winked to the judges.

‘You cannot leave Pelides!’ Minos’s voice rose above the heads of the dead, blurs in Achilles’s peripheral vision. The words dropped like a storm of arrows, clipping his heels, but still he ran, his feet barely touching the polished stone as he fled the inevitable. Then again, Achilles had always been gifted at fleeing fate.

The gates rose above him again, the throng of souls lost to the depths of the underworld behind him. He raced past the carved Cerberus, past the stone pillars like masts frozen in time beneath the earth. He ran until he choked on the sulfur in the air, sweat dripping down his neck and mingling with the blood on his chest. He ran until his lungs burned brighter than the Phlegeton. He ran until his divine blood ran dry, and his unstaggering feet caught beneath him. The ground ran up to meet him, and Achilles’s knees and palms opened against the jagged earth of the underworld, the rock lapping avidly at the blood that poured forth. Achilles revelled in the pain. A glance over his shoulder told him what he already knew. He hadn’t made it two feet from the monolithic gates, Cerberus’s ruby eyes glowing, the firelight casting his maw into a sliver of a smirk.

Achilles pushed back his hair, staining his scalp with blood, and rose. And ran. 


	3. Briseis

Wounds refused to scab in the underworld, Achilles would learn. The angry flesh of his hands and knees remained burnt red, swollen with scarlet blood that bled like tears against his dirtied flesh. The sting had ebbed quickly, leaving only numbness in its wake. Achilles was tempted to tear the flesh again, if only to sink into the fire burning in his veins. His hands would close to fists at his side, where his sword should have been, fingernails biting red crescents into the skin which had never needed to callous.

He ran until the burning of his lungs had become second nature. It was the only dependable variable in the constantly shifting landscape. One second the Acheron was within reach, his toes sinking into the sediment of the beach, only for the earth to shift beneath his bare feet, and he was facing Cerberus’s glittering eyes again. The beast’s unmoving snarl was his only companion for what felt like days. Achilles knew it hadn’t been. Too many men died in war for Charon not to return to the gates so soon. They had buried them by the dozen during the plague at Troy. Achilles would wait. The underworld could not keep him contained.

The judges did not come for him, nor did any of the souls of the dead soldiers. Achilles paid this knowledge no mind, nor did he seek them out. His destiny resided with one man alone, and if he could not come to Achilles, like he had at Pelion, like he had at Scyros, then Achilles would go to him. If one could only run on single-minded logic for so long, Achilles’s divine blood had exempt him from the fact. Even as it pearled between his clenched fingers, he ran. Until the very ground of the underworld eroded beneath the soles of his feet, he would run. He had escaped fate before, he could bend the wills of gods to his. He would not be denied. And if the gods saw fit to punish him? Eternal torment would be a relief.

His palms were slick with blood when Charon returned. Achilles had reached the edges of the Acheron again, his heels digging beneath the shifting earth. His next step would have sent him tumbling into the hissing waters of the river, but the now familiar vertigo rippled across the landscape, and Achilles stumbled into the gates of the underworld. His knee slammed into the rock baluster. The pain was exquisite against the numbness, and Achilles grasped it with every sense. He let the radiating ache chase away the apathy from beneath his skin. A shudder racked his frame, and he shook out his hand, as if preparing for a spear throw. If he tried, he could conjure the tide of memories he usually kept at bay. The waters of the past would splash around his ankles, rise to his knees. He could tug, and let the torrent overcome him, drowning beneath the sun-soaked surface of the oceans at Phthia. There were two boys there, on the beach. They lazed against the rocks and spoke of things that didn’t matter. The one with bronze skin leaned in, and for a moment that spanned both the breadth of a hair’s width, and the span of eternity, the boys’ lips fell together in wondrous dissonance. A lifetime away, a man bled through clenched fists.

When Achilles turned, the Acheron was at his feet, and Charon was rowing. The figure sitting in his rowboat was obscured by his long bedraggled cloak, but their approach was steady. Their voices drifted across the inky waters, barely a wrinkle betraying the slow progression of the vessel.

‘ … asked the same question recently,’ spoke Charon, his wrung out tone splashed against Achilles’s still figure along the shore with familiarity. The second, almost crushed him with the force of a tsunami.

‘Achilles,’ said Briseis, pushing a heavy curtain of drenched hair away from her eyes. She hadn’t been speaking to him, yet the name fell to his feet nonetheless, and with it, her gaze. ‘Achilles.’

Charon followed her line of sight, and came to see the stock still figure on the bank. Achilles let his shoulders fall, and lifted his golden crowned head to the pair. The ferryman hummed thoughtfully, but made no comment as he moored the boat with his long oar, and held out a dirt encrusted hand to Briseis. She didn’t seem overly preoccupied by the talons as she slipped her fingers into his, stepping onto the shores of the underworld.

She stood wet to the bone in one of Patroclus’s old tunics, a habit she had never outgrown since those first nights amongst the Greeks. She had dresses, Achilles knew, and yet he wasn’t surprised that even in death she would bear the name of his paramour for all it was worth. She had loved him just the same. Achilles, of all people, could not begrudge her that. His name hung between them, unsaid.

‘I expect I will be seeing you again?’ Spoke up Charon, standing ready to return up the Acheron. Achilles’s gaze swung to the ferryman.

‘I will come with you,’ he said. Briseis’s eyes widened a fraction, her lips opening to let out a silent breath. Realization dawned over her features in time with the pain that flashed across Achilles’s.

‘Do you have payment?’ Asked Charon, unperturbed by the quiet mourning coursing between the two souls. Achilles’s jaw clicked. He was reminded of a boy who hadn’t known to lie when his life depended on it. Briseis thought of a man who had lied to save hers.

‘No.’ The best of the Greeks breathed. 

‘Then I cannot take you across,’ answered the ferryman.

‘You don’t understand,’ started Achilles, toes curling around the wet earth of the beach. The ferryman’s head quirked to the side, burning eyes assessing him beneath his hood.

‘I know better than most,’ said Charon lightly, ‘probably more than most.’

‘I cannot leave him,’ answered Achilles levelly, with all the strength of unyielding steel.

‘You should have let us bury him,’ whispered Briseis.

Achilles spun on his heel to face her, a fury fuelled by guilt mounting in his chest, closing his throat. She stood there, barefoot and wet, arms curled around her frame, skin bleached and lips blue.

‘Who buried you?’ He hissed, venom dripping from every word.

‘ _Kenotaphion._ ’ She answered quietly, wide eyes dead in her pallid face. Empty tomb. They had not recovered her body. Achilles didn’t ask, he didn’t care.

‘Who?’ He seethed.

‘Phoinix.’

‘Why.’

‘Who would refuse someone’s soul rest?’

Achilles had no answer. His shoulders squared and he looked to the Acheron where Charon was watching them with mild interest. She would not see him break again.

‘What will be the greatest stain on your honour,’ she whispered over the chasm between them. There had only ever been Patroclus to bind them. Now, there was nothing by the wisps of his memory, and the abyss of his lost. ‘That I was taken from you? Or that you let Patroclus leave?’

A sound between a snarl and a tormented cry left his lips, and Achilles lunged for the boat. Charon didn’t even seem surprised, shifting the oar with inhuman speed to push the vessel from the bank. Achilles landed with a splash, knee-high in the Acheron. The torture was immediate, overtaking his sense with the swiftness of an arrow head between his ribs. The hissing of the water turns to the cries of lost souls in his ears, and he knew why the Acheron flowed with agony. He fell, and saw the Phlegethon behind his eyelids.

When Achilles awoke, he was lying on the beach by the river, at the foot of the gates. Briseis and Charon were gone, and he was alone again.


	4. Priam

Time was not something Achilles truly knew. Not so much an issue with his new status as a soul refusing to rest amongst his peers in the gardens of Elysium, but rather a life-long struggle. There was something to be said about being a descendent of the gods. It allowed for a proximity to immortality, the possibility of eternity, which other mortals could do nothing more but dream of. The tangibility of timelessness meant that the actual years were nothing more than the dwindling in between. He was destined for greatness, a future brighter than even the sun-soaked beaches of Phthia. He had been waiting, his whole life, for a taste of forever.

Maybe that was why his vigil at the gates of the underworld was not as strenuous as they might have been on a more mortal soul. Achilles knew what it was to wait. This was not the eternity he had hoped for, but it felt all the same. Ambrosia was said to taste of the sweetest nectars known to man. Achilles did not need the mimicry, he would feast once more upon Patroclus’s lips, and know the truly divine end a hero deserved. Not that he did, deserve it. Not that he was, a hero.

_What will be the greatest stain on your honour, that I was taken from you? Or that you let Patroclus leave?_

He curled his fingers around the harsh sediment of the beach, letting the rocks and moist sand encrust themselves in the still open wounds of his palms. His fingers loosened, and the dark purplish sand ran through his fingers, filtering into a neat pile by his toes. He rocked on his heels, letting his weight carry him. His attention never drifted from the faint fall of sand from between the creases of his hand. The fall of every grain, like an hourglass, steadier a stream than Achilles had ever known. What was ten years to a man parched for victory? What had those years come to in the end?

He shifted, his weight carrying him forward onto his knees. The sand sifted through his knuckles, sticking to his palms where blood had dried in cakes. He didn’t look up, out at the Acheron, tempting and waiting. It was a narrow river. He could leap across with enough of a head start. The underworld wouldn’t allow it, however, always twisting from beneath his feet at the last moment, leading him face to face with the snarling grin of the three-headed Cerberus. The beast had earned the ire of the best of the Greeks. If Achilles had forever, he would chip at the mocking features of the beat until it’s ruby eyes could be fashioned into a crown.

Gathering his feet beneath him, Achilles inched a few feet forwards, watching the Phlegethon flicker over to his right. As long as the shadows grew to his left, the Acheron would remain straight ahead. Achilles shifted, again, feigning indifference. He could feel Cerberus’s eyes like ice along his sweating nape. Still, he minutely crept forward, pretending to reach for more sand still, to add to his growing pile. The rive made no sound, but the beach moistened the closer he got. His knees, then, were wholly sinking into the wet sand.

‘Not much to do here, is there?’ called out Charon. Achilles’s head kicked up, keen eyes landing on the lazily approaching boat. The ground immediately shifted beneath the balls of his feet, stretching out the few feet that had been between him and the Acheron into dozens. Achilles rolled onto his haunches with all the grace of a practised predator. The ferryman seemed unperturbed. The man in his ship looked around the edges of Charon’s cloak.

‘Pelides,’ said Priam. Achilles stood.

Charon moored his vessel and held out a hand to the old king of Troy. The man took it gratefully, and stepped onto the beach with sure footing. A long garish wound ran from the crux of his ribs down to his navel, as if he’d been gutted. Achilles’s eyes flickered over the features of a man he’d only known in the dark candlelight confines of his tent, two dead men between them. The Phlegethon had quite the same effect, same firelight, different dead men.

‘Who?’ voiced Achilles, his eyes leaving the gash on the front of the man’s robes and shattered armour, still hanging to his old frame like a lover’s fingers. Priam stepped forward, his feet bare against the strange sand, and Charon quietly departed behind him. The king of Troy reached the best of the Greeks, and set a heavy hand on the younger man’s shoulder, not that time had any bearing on them any longer.

‘Let us walk while we talk, Pelides,’ he said, and gestured to the gate of the underworld. While just moments ago, the stone Cerberus had been breathing down his neck, the gates now stood some distances away, not unlike Achilles’s first venture to them. He nodded, and the man whose hands were weathered like his father’s, guided him along the shore of the Acheron.

‘Who?’ Achilles said again, some time, unmeasurable as it might be, later. Priam sighed heavily, and laced his hands behind his back, leaving the wound along his torso uncovered.

‘Your son.’

‘Pyrrhus.’ The name tasted of ash in Achille’s mouth.

‘Yes,’ answered the old king, ‘in your honour, mind you. How old is he?’

‘Twelve.’ Since Skyros. _What had those years come to in the end?_

‘He looks as a man would,’ Priam hummed. The sand stuck to their bare soles, and the gates did not approach.

‘My mother is a goddess.’

‘Yes,’ he said, ‘and so the fields of Elysium await you. And yet you are here.’

‘I await someone.’

‘Your therapon,’ said Priam, ‘the man Hector killed.’

‘Patroclus.’ The name tasted of a mouthful of Acheron’s waters.

‘You did not bury him,’ he asked, and it didn’t sound like a question, but neither did it sound like an accusation. Achilles let the guilt consume him, a festering heat pushing against his skin from within, trying desperately to get out.

‘I could not let him leave without me again,’ he said, eyes closed against the fires of the underworld. Priam was silent for a long moment, and they walked in the quiet of understanding, a shared pain. When he spoke again, his words were of the same quality he had begged for his son’s corpse back.

‘We do not decide who leaves, nor when they do. The gods might pretend to know, but even I heard their cries when you struck down Hector. Troy could have fallen to you, Pelides, but it was never Troy you desired, truly.’

_What was ten years to a man parched for victory?_

‘No.’

_He had been waiting, his whole life, for a taste of forever._

The gates rose before them, and Priam came to a halt at the mouth of Cerberus.

‘Your name, Achilles,’ he started, the man in question’s eyes already turning back to the waiting black waters and shifting beach. ‘It means pain.’ _Achos_.

‘I did not know,’ said Achilles.

‘Would it have changed anything if you did?’ Asked Priam, and Achilles looked at him then.

‘What would a single word have changed?’

‘What are prophecies, if not a handful of words, and the belief that they can change the world?’


	5. Hector

Achilles had never needed to know patience. Born a prince, moreover, a demi-god destined for greatness, there had been no need. Food, clothing, weapons, every whim, even those he hadn’t had, were met before he could even ask. He’d been bathed in gold, both material, and light, amongst the boys of Phthia, and amongst the men of Troy. The ground had yielded beneath his perfect feet, flesh of the earth under the flesh of gods. Achilles had walked among men running from the future, while he’d been searching it out. His future, his honour, his destiny. Except… in the sun warmed beaches of home. In the quartz caves of Pelion. In the limbo of Scyros. In the bloodied fields of Troy. There was always one common denominator, one person who’d called him back, made him still in his frenzy for divinity. A man who had been worth a decade. Patroclus, who he’d waited for at Pelion all those years ago.

‘ _I hoped you would come.’_ The words drifted from his dried, split lips, into the stale air of the underworld. The Phlegethon glinted across the words, making them shine like gleaming metal under harsh sunlight, sharp like spear heads against the crux of a man’s neck. Achilles wished he could reach out and grasp them before they dissolved into the scenery of the land, and bury them beneath his numbed skin. Perhaps the pain might rekindle some semblance of fervour to his limp form. His breath fanned across the words’ steely surface, and they melted into the water of the Acheron, the stalagmite teeth of Cerberus. Achilles’ hand dropped back to rest on his knees, his eyes fluttering closed against the ever effervescent scenery.

‘I cannot bring myself to believe it is me you have been waiting for.’

Achilles lurched to his feet, the ground shifting beneath him. He’d been siting as close to the Acheron as Cerberus allowed, watching the still waters for the slightest ripple, any indication of Charon’s return. He now faced the gates to the underworld, the beach veering and rightened until he was standing no further from Hector than when he’d speared the man through the neck, days, _years_ , ago.

Hector had stilled a few feet from the gates, the beach shorter now than Achilles had ever seen it. While he stood caked in blood and grime, the battlefield fresher on his skin than in his mind, Hector was donned in a white linen chiton. The material was pulled across his broad shoulders, his head of tousled black curls raised not defiantly, but with the air of a favoured hero of Apollo. The vee of his neck was bare and unmarked. Achilles scoured for the pain of the gash between his ribs, the bits of steel he knew to still be incrusted near his heart. It had the same quality as the memory of warm ashes against his own, fabricated, desperate, and numb.

‘There was word of a hero who refused Elysium, but I did not expect it to be you,’ he said. Hector’s eyes detailed Achilles, from his now rust-colored hair, to his bloodied clothes and the wounds on his knees that refused to close. Framed by the gates of the underworld, Hector looked every bit the prised hero of Troy. Achilles had not known him long alive, and could barely reconcile the pale drawn flesh of the man’s corpse with the statuesque warrior before him. His shrewd eyes mirrored that of the judges. Achilles waited for the tongue of Minos, for the words of Rhadamanthus.

‘I should thank you,’ said Hector instead.

‘I did not bury you.’ Spat Achilles. He could only kill the man so many times. Anger rolled over him, fury. The heat of the underworld curled around his ankles, only cooled by the memory of the Acheron and it’s waters of agony. Achilles wondered if souls which had already accepted their sentences could still feel such pain.

‘I am aware. I would not expect such a thing of the Greeks, least of all from you,’ Hector made a vague gesture, as if brushing aside the insult. ‘For returning my body, if not in the state in which I left it.’

‘I dragged your body behind my chariot before the gates of Troy. I made your people watch.’ Hissed Achilles, fist clenched, nails digging into the old gouges. He pursued the spike of torment which had speared him upon seeing the man who’s name had held more weight than the spear that had killed him.

‘You did not eat me raw,’ Hector answered evenly, crossing his arms behind his back much like his father, Priam, had just days, _hours_ , ago. The feeling flitted from between Achilles’ numb fingertips, blood soaked sand from benevolent palms. He could bathe in misery, but he could not drown on the few drops of ire in his veins. 

‘Would it have killed me quicker?’ Achilles asked harshly. Hector leisurely strolled forwards, stopping beside Achilles, and let his gaze wonder up the Acheron.

‘No, I do not believe it would have.’

‘Then you have no reason to thank me.’ Spat the best of the Greeks.

‘And yet, I have,’ hummed the man. Achilles watched him from beneath his matted hair, keen eyes picking apart the planes of his enemy’s face.

‘Would you have me accept your thanks?’ He sneered, but Hector only cracked a small smile. A more insightful man would have seen the sadness cradled in the curve of his lips, but Achilles was still chasing the evasive murderous intent he’d carried so easily that day in the field of Troy.

‘No, no… I don’t believe you could, nor would it change much, now that we’re both, well, dead.’

‘What do you ask?’ Frowned Achilles, turning to watch him as one does a predator. Hector chuckled.

‘Nothing, I’m simply making polite conversation.’

‘Nothing about this is polite.’

‘On the contrary, I’d think this is rather amicable for old foes. You have not yet tried to throw me in the Acheron, though I’m sure the thought crossed your mind.’

‘Tempt me.’

‘I saw you return my body to my father,’ said Hector instead. The words fell from his lips, rushed in their admission. Achilles was caught off guard, more by the tone of confession than the actual words. He did not answer. Hector shifted his weight, twisting his hands and clasping them again. His gaze did not stray from the Acheron.

‘I watched him beg to you, on his knees, a king. I watched him cry for my corpse and you yielded. You did not yield to Agamemnon, yet you yielded to my father.’

‘How?’ Breathed Achilles.

‘We had heard, of his stealing of your war prize, how you refused to fight. It’s why we attacked, why we fought to burn your boats. Apollo told us it was our last chance to save Troy.’

‘No. Not Troy. How did you see Priam?’ His words were cut from glass. Hector blinked, and let his gaze stray from the landscape to the torture behind Achilles’ eyes.

‘Did you not stay?’

‘I am here.’ He curled his toes into the bank, as if to convince himself.

‘After you fell, did you not float amongst the living until they buried you?’ Hector frowned now, his eyes sharp and searching. Achilles knew the weight of them, a gaze he’d felt a thousand times upon him in the heat of battle, always searching him out. He had not known Hector, but he had known his gaze, his intent.

‘Servant girls gathered my ashes. The urn was gold.’ Said Achilles hollowly. Hector hummed, and his gaze relented, searching out the dark corners of the underworld.

‘You kept my body, for days. I remember every one of them.’ 

The words had the effect of a physical blow to Achilles. He reached blindly for his chest, for the source of the agony, and when his hand came away bloodied he wondered where the spear had come from. But the blood was not his own, and the pain was not a second death. The universe was not so merciful. Achilles blinked and found that the scenery had not in fact shifted under his feet, even if it had felt so. He fell back a step, steadying himself as he dragged in a lungful of sulfuric air. Hector stayed perfectly poised, sparing him the embarrassment of coming apart in front of an enemy. Achilles locked his knees to keep them from buckling, breathed out as if he was about to charge into battle. The technique had always cleared his mind, left nothing but the blank slate of instinct to guide him between the flying spears and swinging blades. But there was nothing instinctual about the shame that overcame him, clawing at his throat, stung his eyes. There was nothing but the sudden fear of a drowning man, the desperation of a cage animal. He would know. Patroclus would know it was Achilles who refused to bury him.

‘You are still here,’ noted Charon. Achilles turned on his heel, almost tipped over. He grappled with the truth, felt its teeth sink into his skin, the acid seep into his veins. He blinked, the shroud of Patroclus fading from before his eyes. He blinked again, away with his pallid face, his limp limbs curled into his own. Achilles looked up the Acheron, and willed away the scared eyes of his paramour from beneath his own helmet.

‘How long?’ Achilles whispered. He lifted his head, forcing his eyes to focus on the fire-painted landscape, on Charon who rowed lazily down the Acheron. ‘How long?’ He called. Charon quirked his head, flames for eyes burning brightly beneath his hood. The ferryman pulled his boat into the alcove away from the current. The prow cut into the sand of the beach with ease. There was no one sitting behind him.

‘Charon,’ greeted Hector, nodding.

‘You must be the father.’

‘I am.’

‘Here, hold this,’ Charon handed over his oar. Hector took it, and Achilles tried to reign in the flood of Patroclus long enough to comprehend what was happening before him.

‘Who-’

‘Carefully now,’ tutted the ferryman as he crouched in his ship, his world-old bones creaked as the wood of his ship did. His bedraggled cloak moved around his spindly form like a tide, waves rolling along his dirt-bone arms as he stretched and picked a small bundle from the bottom of his boat. A sharp inhale to Achilles’ right had him looking between the bloodied rags Charon cradled, and Hector’s straining expression.

‘Your son.’ Breathed Achilles, realization dawning on him.

‘Yes,’ said Hector, reaching over the lapping edge of the Acheron for his child. Charon carefully transferred the bundle over to the man, and exchanged it for his oar. Achilles was stone, unable to reach for either, to move even an inch. The rags the child were wrapped in fell away in Hector’s arms, revealing the cracked skull and bloodied remains of bone. The boy’s eyes were open, and a plump arm reached up for his father’s beard. Hector thumbed away the blood from the infant’s cheek.

‘Who-’

‘Pyrrhus.’ Answered Hector like the swing of an ax. Achilles felt the ground shift again beneath his feet, every changing quick sand. The beach inched up his feet, as if to swallow him. Achilles might have let it. Hector’s eyes lifted from the bloodied child in his arms, to Achilles. His eyes held the accusation of a father, but none spilled forth.

‘Thank you, Charon,’ said Hector softly, nodding again to the ferryman.

‘Of course,’ answered the other. Achilles still had not moved, eyes fixed on the startling white amongst the mess of scarlet which was the baby’s head. ‘You had a question?’ Charon turned to Achilles. The broken warrior tore his gaze from Hector and his son, and dragged them to the Acheron and its ferryman. Achilles tugged on one string amidst the tangle of his mind.

‘How long has it been?’ He managed to say. Charon seemed to think about it for a bit.

‘Eternity is not easily distinguished from itself.’ He decided, pleased with his answer. Achilles blinked away the expression Patroclus had worn when he’d found out about Deidamia.

‘Since I arrived, how many days?’

‘I do not keep track of such things.’ Brushed aside Charon.

‘What do you keep track of?’ Snapped Achilles. Charon shrugged.

‘The tides, for one.’ 

‘What of time?’

‘What use have I for time?’ Asked Charon with a strange smile that resembled a yellow gash splitting across the shadow of his face. Achilles swam through the oceans of memories that tried to engulf him. ‘I shall see you again then?’ Said Charon, pushing away from the bank. Achilles wanted to reach out, to call for the ferryman to stop, but could not move an inch. Instead, he twitched, and a shiver wracked his frame, his hair falling in front of his eyes to blissfully hide the tears.

_I remember every one of them._

‘Achilles,’ Hector called. Achilles braced himself, and spun. The man had walked back to the gates of the underworld, his son cradled to his chest, his eyes filled with a sadness of ineffable quality, ‘you have my thanks, but you also have my forgiveness, if you want it.’

‘Why?’ Achilles croaked, exhaustion painting his words in broad strokes, his eyes once again drawn for the bloody rags in Hector’s arms.

‘Because you had no other choice. I know of what the fates said, how I needed to die first.’ Hector admitted, his arms tightening around the infant, ‘I would not have let a man stand between me and what I wanted either.’

‘You killed Patroclus.’ Refuted Achilles.

‘Yes. And I died so you may find peace in Elysium. Try not to squander my death moping about the Acheron.’

‘I killed you because you slaughtered Patroclus.’ Reaffirmed Achilles, shaking his head resolutely. Hector only shrugged, his eyes gaining again the weight they’d held on the battlefield. Achilles thought they might drag him below the surface he could barely stay above, the memories flooding above his head, the all-knowing eyes of his only true equal on the plains of Troy anchoring him.

‘Did you?’ asked Hector. ‘You might be arrogant Pelides, but I have never thought you vengeful.’

‘You do not know me.’ Hissed Achilles. He pushed away the memories of reaching for a sword that was not at his hip, where it should have been. 

‘No, you’re right, I don’t,’ conceded Hector, ‘but while you kept me from death, I watched you sleep with the dead corpse of your therapon. I watched you weep over the gash I tore in his chest’

‘You have no-’

‘I watched you scream yourself raw over his name, a single word.’

‘Stop-’

‘I watched you refuse to bury him. Is that why he is not here? Is that why you refuse Elysium?’

‘I’m waiting,’ choked Achilles, wishing again for his sword at his side, for a more merciful end.

‘For Patroclus.’ Finished Hector. Achilles’ head jerked up, the flames of the Phlegethon rivalled by those burning behind his eyes.

‘You have no right to use his name.’

‘I killed him, is that not enough?’ Answered Hector levelly.

‘You have no claim on his life.’

‘And you did?’

‘I-’ Faltered Achilles, his eyes falling. When no answer came, Hector took a breath.

‘You should know, I never meant to kill your therapon. The way he fought, the way he moved… I thought I had killed you until his helmet fell. Your helmet. It was your armour after all.’

‘I did not mean for him to die.’ Whispered Achilles, staring again at the sand coating his feet.

‘I did not mean to kill him.’ Answered Hector. Achilles speared him with a glare.

‘Is that what you want? My forgiveness?’ He sneered.

‘No, Achilles,’ said Hector, turning to the gates of the underworld. His steps echoed in the cavernous entrance, his chiton stained with the blood of his blood, ‘I want nothing from you.’

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi! Sorry this is *extra* late. I've been trying to update weekly but between birthdays and midterms, I didn't manage to set time aside recently. This one ended up extra long, so I'll pretend that was on purpose to make up for it ~ Anyway, back to our regular scheduling. 
> 
> PS: Thanks to everyone who left a kudos and/or a comment, they always make my day! :D


	6. Polyxena

The cry woke him. Achilles had not known sleep would be possible in the underworld, nor did he remember falling so. The guilt had swallowed him whole after Hector’s departure. A numbness like overexertion, the feeling of nerves shot to hell, had overcome him, and he’d considered throwing himself into the Acheron again, if only to feel something other than the overwhelming apathy gnawing at his conscience. Somewhere along the line, the relentless strain, from the moment he’d reached for the sword he’d given his lover, had taken its toll. Not even his divine blood could sustain him forever. He awoke at the feet of Cerberus, an ancient pain lodged in his chest, and an ache behind his eyes, tear tracks along the blood painting his cheeks like war paint. The scream echoed among the cavernous halls of the underworld, ebbed, and vanished among the stalagmites. Charon had returned.

Achilles rose quietly from the foot of the gates, his usual grace left with the ashes of another, among the living. He took shaking steps towards the beach, waiting again for the shift of the ground. Mercifully, Cerberus did not taunt him this time, even as the edges of the Acheron came up to lap at Achille’s toes. The faint jolts of agony palled against the emptiness marked by the arrow tip between his ribs. With rattling breaths, he counted the strokes of the ferrymen who approached.

There was a woman seated behind him. He did not recognize her, though her features rang familiar. Delicate fabric was draped across her frail frame, skin of ivory and hair of ebony, her eyes were wide and frightened, unfocused in her face. As they neared, Achilles could make out the fine bow of her lips. He watched it stretch, her mouth unhinge, as she let out another ear-splitting wail. Achilles flinched violently, a twinge echoing her terror deep in his chest. Charon wedged the boat in the sands of the Acheron, and looked dismayed. The girl did not move, did not seem to realize they had arrived, staring off ahead in a daze.

‘I took the coin from her mouth,’ said Charon conversationally. Achilles’s eyes darted from the pallid scream-etched expression of the girl to the ferryman. Charon shrugged, ‘some are like that, when they didn’t expect to die.’

‘What will happen to her?’ Achilles asked. Charon looked back at the girl.

‘Same as most, I expect,’ he answered, ‘they forget who they were after a bit, and just roam the meadows, at peace.’

‘Asphodel meadows,’ said Achilles, and Charon hummed. Where Priam most likely was, with Hector and his son. Where Achilles would go if Patroclus went. ‘Forget?’ Charon’s hooded head lifted from inspecting the girl and quirked at Achilles’s expression, blazing eyes wide and as kind as open flames could get.

‘Oh yes, but you don’t notice it happening,’ he added as a comfort, and waved away Achilles’s sudden vertigo with a flick of his wrist, ‘help me with her, why don’t you?’ Charon dug his oar into the beach, leaning heavily as he hoisted the girl up by the arm. His bony fingers dug deeply into her fine skin, bringing blotches of red to the surface. She rose to shaking knees, otherwise limp in his grip. Charon dragged her over the edge of the boat, and Achilles reached. As she spun to face the beach, Achilles finally saw the slice across her neck. The scarlet gash ran from beneath one ear to the other, a swift cut catching both arteries on each side, yet virtually no blood dotted her clothes. A single drop had cascaded along clavicle and crested the bone, teetering. Her knee slammed against the edge of Charon’s boat and she tumbled forward into the Acheron.

Achilles caught her before she could hit the waters, and she folded almost gracefully into his arms, a cloud of silks and pearls curling like a swan’s wings to rest against his dirtied and broken bronze skin. Agony raced up his legs where Achilles stood ankle deep in the water. His grip on the girl was bruising, but the pain was tenfold as it arched through him like lightning. He stumbled back, kicking up water, but managing to find dry land before collapsing on the shore, the girl carefully tucked against his aching chest. The cavernous ceiling of the underworld winked above him, dots dancing among the stalactites. Sulfurous air wheezed between his clattering teeth.

‘Good catch,’ hummed Charon. Achilles managed the herculean task of turning his head, and watched the blurry ferrymen tip his head, and set off back down the river, even as Achilles’s finger twitched at him to stop.

‘Bastard,’ Achilles muttered. The girl cried softly against his chest. When the feeling returned to his arms and hands, he dislodged her from himself. A high pitch keening started to emanate from the girl, and Achilles’s headache pounded all the more behind his eyes. Sitting up, he eyed her curled and shaking form next to him.

‘You have to go through the gate,’ he said, none too gently. She keened louder, like a wounded beast Achilles would have found merciful to kill out on Pelion. Patroclus always turned away when Achilles struck the killing blow. Achilles wondered if Patroclus had turned away when he had died.

‘Get up,’ he ordered, rising to his own feet even as his legs threatened to give out beneath him, still alive with the fires of agony that ran down the Acheron. ‘The judges await,’ he waved towards the gaping mouth of Cerberus and its twinkling ruby eyes. The keening stopped, but she still rocked back and forth on her heels, arms wrapped around herself, fingers twitching towards her lacerated neck.

‘What?’ He asked, kneeling closer.

‘I can’t,’ she whispered again, her voice broken, hoarse and gravely. Achilles didn’t have much ground to stand on there.

‘Are you waiting for someone?’ He asked, standing again to look back out over the Acheron.

‘No,’ she keened, and Achilles looked back in alarm, fearing another bout of screaming. She stared intently at her knees, bottom lip wedged between her teeth. Of all things, Achilles wished Briseis there in that moment, the woman had always known how to calm the new Trojan captives.

‘Why not, then?’ He asked, kicking at the sand at his feet. Her gaze lifted from her knees, and she skewered him with a look of such pure hatred that he was momentarily frozen to the spot.

‘Anywhere is better than with him,’ she hissed vehemently, her fingers digging violently into her skirt, the seams tearing in her palms.

‘Who?’

‘Achilles,’ she spat, her shoulder shaking with unbridled rage. Achilles swallowed drily.

‘Who are you,’ he asked. Her gaze dropped back to her knees as she curled into herself once more, the white cloth of her dress like wilting flower petals around her.

‘I am Polyxena. I am the daughter of King Priam. I am the sister of the great princes Hector and Paris, favoured of Apollo and Aphrodite. I am the princess of Troy,’ she recited flatly, eyes vacant again. Achilles searched his memory of the girl, but a different face painted the landscape of his mind.

‘You have never met Achilles,’ he said instead. Her stricken gaze lifted once more, landing shakily on him.

‘Who are you?’

‘Patroclus,’ it had left his lips before he’d even thought of it.

‘You know Achilles?’ She pressed, fingers again shredding the delicate material of her dress, the name was a curse on her tongue.

‘I am his therapon,’ he could not lie. Her expression slackened and, quick as a whip, she’d clambered to her knees and was gripping the bottom of his torn tunic, eyes wild.

‘Please! Please if you know him, speak to him, ask him not to take me. Please, do not let him take me!’ She cried, tears spilling forth a new. Achilles ripped himself from her grasp, taking quick steps back and out of her reach. The Acheron lapped at his heels, but the pain was nothing but familiar.

‘What do you speak of?’ He threw out harshly, panting despite himself, something akin to fear, what little he’d ever known of it, like ice between his ribs.

‘I was sacrificed,’ she cried, cradling herself, ‘to appease his soul. His son bled me on his grave in front of my mother and sister. He offered me to the killer of my brothers.’

‘No.’ Spat Achilles, head already shaking.

‘The soul of Achilles asked for my sacrifice.’

‘No!’ Yelled Achilles. Polyxena’s eyes found him.

‘Yes.’ Her finger brushed the gash along her neck.

‘Stop.’ He seized her wrist. ‘He did not ask for you. Pyrrhus spoke lies. The boy is a fool,’ seethed Achilles.

‘He did not?’ She choked, desperation morphing her features into something Achilles could not find the courage to look at as he answered. His grip slackened around her forearm.

‘No. He would not ask such a thing. He has no such,’ _hubris_ , ‘arrogance.’ Achilles scoured the darkness of the Underworld. ‘He would not ask another to die for him.’

‘He killed my brothers. He is a monster.’ She threw back, her tone sharp, tears catching on the gash across her neck. Achilles looked away again.

‘No! He… He is not.’ He finished lamely. She shifted to her knees, her chin jutting out to assess him.

‘You are his therapon, of course, he would not be a monster to you.’

‘He is not a monster,’ Achilles reaffirmed, ‘he had to kill Hector. It was said.’ 

‘It was said Troy would fall.’

‘And did it not? I saw Priam. I saw Hector! If Troy did not fall then who plays at killing kings?’ He roared, blood rushing in his ears. She bowed her head.

‘It did,’ she admitted. Achilles’s shoulder dropped, the breath and anger leaving him all at ounce. The Acheron played at washing the grime from his feet, softening the callouses a life barefoot had left behind.

‘Blame the gods if you must,’ he sighed, pushing his palm against his burning eyes.

‘I prayed, and still Troy fell. Pyrrhus still killed me.’

‘Amongst many, I hear,’ he added bitterly. She sniffed, and her gaze trailed over to the gates. Silence dragged a heavy cloak around them, settled against their slumped shoulders like a blanket. They shivered in the quiet.

‘You have seen my father?’ She asked like a child. She was a child. The drop of blood crested her clavicle and stained the neckline of her dress, blossoming along the fabric in a brilliant red starburst.

‘Yes. Your brother as well.’

‘And Achilles will not come to claim me?’ She prodded, eyes uncertain as she watched him beneath her eyelashes.

‘He will not. I promise you,’ he assured her. She nodded, worrying her lip again. Another moment passed as they stood, a war between them, and resolve squared her shoulders. She nodded to herself and stood on shaking legs, turning for the open maw of Cerberus.

‘Through there?’

‘Yes,’ he said, ‘the judges lay beyond. Then the meadows, and Elysium.’

‘You are not with him,’ she hesitated.

‘They would not let me,’ he answered.

‘But you know he did not ask for me.’

‘I know if better than he knows himself.’

‘And he did not come for you? His therapon?’ She asked, her long dark hair framing her red-rimmed eyes.

‘He will,’ Achilles said, swore. ‘He will return to me.’


End file.
